Sermon – “Redeemed” (Pastor Karen Higson)

65 Then fear came on all who dwelt around them; and all these sayings were discussed throughout all the hill country of Judea.

16 But Ruth said: “Entreat me not to leave you, Or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, And your God, my God. 17 Where you die, I will die, And there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, If anything but death parts you and me.”

9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.

Coprime when I asked him to do this this morning I said you can easy he said no the easy parts doing nothing. I said Well that’s true it’s true no as I was I had a couple weeks to know that I needed to do this when we found out that the gods were going to be going to Texas on the mission trip and you know since Gary had ministered while we were on vacation when I didn’t feel like we could ask him to come again and actually Gary is ministering again tomorrow it’s I on United Methodist down the road here so if you’re in the area you want to go here Gary tomorrow he said he’s going to give him Jesus. So. He’ll be there tomorrow he’s not here today because he had a birthday party for his great granddaughter so he’s there and Sandy spoke with her last night and she said I am still at home a storm and by the antibiotics twice a day she fell a couple things the first the last week hurt the knee that had just been repaired. And not damaged it but she was in quite a bit of pain for a while this research. Was resected they had to take all the parts out of the knee that they had put in and clean all the infection out and she had a pretty nasty infection she’ll be on antibiotics for probably And she said six months eight months something like it’s going to be a long time when she gets off the I.V. she’d be on pill form so keep Sandy in your prayer she’s not able to get out much unless somebody takes her and she can’t drive so keep her in your prayers she hopes to be watching if it’s broadcasting good today she’s watching so everybody tell Sandy Hello. As I was thinking about what to do us tell him Barbara said there is a message waiting for you guys about God always been there for you but. I’m not strong enough to do that when you. Say it’s coming. But in fear you’d want somebody all on up here all morning so. We’re going to something a little different today we’re going to talk about redemption and first of all what is redemption do we know what it is what do we know what reduction is second what do we need redemption from. And third who is it that needs retention and I’m I’m hoping to cover all this in the message today the secular definition of redemption is the act of redeeming or atoning for a fault or a mistake other definitions include repurchasing something or making a deliverance or rescue and other words if I saw somebody that had a puppy dog and they were mistreating the puppy I went off or can I buy this dog from you and I bring it home and treat it well I’ve delivered that puppy from being mistreated Right OK and the other definition would include the idea of making something or someone better or more acceptable now that’s a closer definition to the scriptural definition than any that are listed here under the umbrella of this word we could also include the exchanging of something by using something else of value to do here is old enough we’re telling tales to remember S. and H. Green Stamps when you went to I guess the market and you spent X. amount of dollars you receive S N H green stamps you took them home and when you had enough you had a little paypal a little paper bound book and you licked those stinking things and you stuck them in those books and when you had X. amount of books you could take them and reading them for something about you maybe it was a can opener attempts transistor radio who remembers those and I can remember sitting at my grandmother’s dining room table and taken those themes. Why she sat there with a little sponge go on. And I look at her and I said Come I have to lick you get the Sun She said I’ve had my years a look and. I don’t need to look any more. But that’s just the memory I have from my childhood and one that I treasure I treasure the band which I have my grandparents. What today you might consider you might. Relate to is when you go to Martin’s and you spend X. amount of dollars spent one hundred dollars you get ten gas points right and one hundred gas points whatever it is for ten cents off a gallon of gas and you get so many gallon there are so many hundreds of dollars worth of purchases you can go get fifty cents off a gallon gas or thirty cents or whatever it may be so you can redeem those points for gas so those of you youngsters that you can relate to that. But what’s a Christian to Christian definition of redemption. The word redemption is found in the Bible or some form of it approximately one hundred sixty three times some versions are more some versions are less a condor pencil in the version you use but it’s found many times in the old new and old and new testaments and Luke one sixty eight the writer says that John the Baptist father secularize said this blessid be the Lord God of Israel for he has visited and his people. The Greek word used for reading here is like TROSA and I hope and I say that somewhere near correctly and it has a literal meaning of ransoming deliverance or rescue so that’s more the biblical translation ransoming deliverance or rescue and that’s exactly what Jesus did for each one of us when he died over two thousand years ago on the cross of Calvary he rescued his people he delivered his people he ran some dust from the bonds of sin and slavery Amen. So now that we know what we should miss let me tell you a story and this is found in the Bible in the Old Testament and I urge you guys to read this for yourself if you haven’t read it for a while it’s a very well known book of the Bible but it’s a very sweet story in The Book of Ruth. And worse always been one of my favorites and there’s recently been a song that accompanied a couple of verses which I will tell you the verses here in a minute but I’m going to paraphrase this because I’m not going to go through four chapters so this is paraphrased as to care as from care most of you know who Ruth is Ruth was a was a young MOA bitis woman the most bites were tribe there were actually descendants of LOT When lot and Abraham split one way Abraham one another these people were descendants of lot. Ruth married a Jewish man his family came to him because of a famine that had been in the land of Bethlehem to Dia they moved to find food in and farming so that they could make their living and the young man became of age and he married and he married Ruth now the tribes of the middle of bytes and the Jews were enemies because the mill of Beit East would not let the Jews into their land when they crossed over into the promised land all those years before and it was never forgiven so they were actually enemies and. They were actually of two different religions by this point back in the time of King Solomon and you can read about this in Genesis eleven Solomon’s wives actually bent built temples and altar altars I can’t talk to the god. And that C H E M O S H Chemosh I guess how you say that and several other deities and they would worship these deities and so these this is the type of religion that Ruth grew up in they were pagans they were either worshippers so when Ruth married Naomi son and there was another sister in law her name was Orpah she married another son and Ruth Naomi’s husband died then and Iommi sons the husbands of Ruth and orca died so Ruth was a widow or part and they only were widows So Naomi said I’m going back to my homeland I’m going back to Bethleham you girls stay here with your family start a new life because I can’t have any more kids and you just need to make your own way. I don’t I’m not going to have any sons for you Mary even if I did you’re not going to wait eight hundred twenty years for him to grow up so just get on with your life. And so work I did stay but Ruth did not she chose to follow in the ME BACK TO Bethleham and this is where you will find the very popular verse in Chapter one Verse sixteen seventeen of Ruth that said do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you for where you go I will go and where you launch I will launch your people shall be my people and your God My God where you die I will die and there I will be buried May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you and we Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her she said no more now why would Ruth be so insistent to go with Ruth or with Naomi. Because Naomi had lived her godly life she lived to God was so that Ruth saw her God in her. Are we doing that. When we go out day to day do people see our God in us so much so that they would follow us that we would leave our family to follow them so that we could know who that God is that was well knew we lived in that’s why rates followed her. Now you have to remember they were two different cultures two different religions and yet Ruth serve no you me as if she were her own mother the culture divide was gapped the religion divide was gapped and this is a good lesson for our society today I think everybody needs to maybe go back and read Ruth in this world because you know what we’re having diversity clashes were having religion clashes and we don’t need to have that we need to live as one people when they reach Bethleham and they went there because Ruth had heard her name and we had heard that the food was plentiful there again so they went back to Bethlehem but they went to poor widows now at that time in society even though Ruth was a widow she could not claim her husband’s inheritance she could not claim his lands she could not claim any monies that he had she could not claim his home. Just the same Naomi could not claim her husband’s lands his properties any monies they had nothing at all went to the next meal relative it’s pretty unfair isn’t it ladies I’m glad we don’t have that today so as Ruth and you know me went back they had nothing they were poor and so Ruth said I’m going to go into the fields and lanes so she went out into the harvest fields there were they were harvesting the wheat in the barley at this time and she would go behind the rebirth who were the ones that were picking the grains and she would pick up whatever grains fell into the ground now at that time there was again another law in place that the reapers were not to glean everything they want to go into the corners of the field they work to go along the edges and they were to drop so much and by doing this the reaper earth the glee the reapers that Kate the gleaners that came behind them got to get to work straight here to pick up what was left and that would provide for them it was kind of their own so security system OK And so when the owner saw all. Growth in the field he asked his workers who is this and they told him that it was the MO of bodies Ruth who came back with Naomi Well Boaz was a pretty wealthy man but he remembered that Naomi was a member of his family or his tribe or clan so he said went to Ruth and told her you stay with my pickers you stay with them so that you can be protected and he told his pickers you drop some extra for her. Well you might have a little like and for Ruth what do you think so when Ruth went back with all this good grain Naomi says where were you clean. And Ruth said well I’m in the field of both the House and the only got a little clue. Where women are ever matchmakers when. And she thought. Now mammy knew the laws of the land Ruth did not so she told Rue she said to night when Boaz is on the threshing floor I want you to go over there and they would threshed the grain at night what they were doing was they were beaten rounded up in the air and the chaff or the bad part of the week would blow away in the grain would fall down and then they would gather and put it in sacks Well they did this at night because they were harvesting during the day and they would sleep by the threshing floor and that way they could protect their bags of grain no one could make off with them so after Boaz had gleaned he went lay down or thrashed he went and lay down and he covered himself of this blanket and only told Ruth when he does it you go lay at his feet and you cover him set yourself with the edge of his rap. Now so my it told me to do that today I look at him say Are you nuts. But Ruth did not even though it may have sounded very strange to her she went ahead and did what Naomi told her to do and there was nothing inappropriate in the act it was a law or another custom at that time that protected the widow and doing this Ruth was saying I need you to read Dean me so when Boaz noticed her there he said Who are you and what do you want and so Ruth told him who she was and exactly what Nehemiah told her and though as then knew what he had to do. She was asking him to be her kinsmen. If he accepted he would marry her he would acquire her lands he would acquire the probably not her Lee and her husband’s lands he would acquire the properties the money anything that may have come from her husband or was her husband’s will now be hers and in a sense because the son in here. What was Naomi’s husband’s It would then went to the son he was inheriting Naomi’s former properties as well as the son’s properties but in doing so he in order to take that land and those properties he had to marry Ruth to do it there was one other man in line that was a closer relative then he didn’t want the responsibility he didn’t want to forsake it was afraid it might get in the way of his own. Inheritance somewhere down the line he said no no no I’ll take the land right I said well then you got to take the wife. Don’t want that so go as they made the agreement go as agree to marry Ruth. And in doing so he also agreed to take care of Naomi so things worked out pretty well for them because though as was the kinsmen reteam are here we deem them from a world that was wicked and would could have harmed them because at that time since they had no money they were a live one either family to take care of them or the goodness of other people and as widows they were unprotected women in a time where laws were not the greatest there was not a police force to protect them they could have been abused they could have been killed they could’ve starved to death they could’ve. Just had to work from day to day for every little morsel they put in their mouth but Boaz saved them from that so he read the in them from their poverty he redeem them from a life of destitution. And Ruth and Boaz were very happy together and Ruth and Boaz actually became the great grandparents of who who remembers where they are King David. And King David was and whose line of genealogy. Jesus said God had good things in store for with not only did Boaz redeem her from that but he read the end her standing in and the Jewish culture because her claim was once a part of Jewish culture in that lot so he she was repeating back into what she didn’t even know were her ancestors at the time probably but she became again a part of her family she became a part of God’s family. So Bill has saved her and Ruth saw her in the ME. Like Was Jesus is our rethinking when we ask Him into our lives he delivers us from the wrath of God. He delivers us from what. The wrath of God Why do we have the wrath of God upon us. Because of arson when we are still in the sin we are enemies with God Romans five six through eleven says this. For while we were still weak some version say sinners at that right time Christ died for the ungodly for one will scarcely die for a righteous person though perhaps for a poor good person one would dare enough to die but God shows His love for us in that while we will see while we were still centers Christ died for us therefore we have now been justified by his blood much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God For while we were enemies we were reconciled by God to the death of his son much more now that are we reconciled shall we be saved by His life more than that we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received reconciliation So what’s this justified thing. Whatsapp me the Greek verb tense of justified here means a once and for all transaction so once and for all we were justified or we were made righteous by the blood of God by the blood of Christ when Jesus did the work on the cross of Calvary we were justified and that gave us our reconciliation gave us the. Ability to be redeemed So what do we need reading from we redeem from our sins each one of us needs that redemption. And Ephesians one seventeen it says in him we have redemption through His blood the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will according to His purpose which he set forth in Christ so I think I’ve answered all three questions today what is redemption who needs redemption and what do we need redeemed from how can we be enemies of God What made us those enemies. The sin. And we don’t often we don’t even do it knowingly to we sometimes we stand and we don’t even know we’ve sinned. We do things that we shouldn’t do or say things we shouldn’t say and we don’t even think about it or maybe our sin is in not doing something we ever thought of that it’s called a sin of omission. Maybe you were called to to go and help this person today or or maybe you saw someone in you know you had the feeling I need to go talk to them or I need to pray for them or and you don’t do it or maybe God’s called you to to give this for one person or one reason or another and you fail to do there’s many ways we can have sins of a mission things we should do that we don’t do and no matter how we do it we sin and that makes us an enemy of God. And that’s why we need to be justified by the blood of Christ that we can read. Of our sins so that we are not slaves to it we’re not held accountable for Jesus died so that God can forgive us so that we are no longer enemies but we are what we’re God’s children. You know just as Boaz saved Ruth and do you mean Naomi from the wrath of a wicked world and Jesus saved each one of us from the wrath of God and like Barbara said this morning her son said if we don’t tell the world about Jesus and about his going to who’s going to do it I have to do it and like Romney said last week I listened to him I went here last week but I listen to the message this week if we’re not going to do it somebody has to we have to go out and spread what we what Jesus has poured in we have to go on poor out. We have to pour out what Jesus has flowed into us through his redeeming grace and through His blood and his sacrifice we have to share that with a lost and dying were so that Jesus can be very Dean.